The way this team is put together, it looks the best when the defense feeds the offense, and the offense gets early leads and puts pressure on the opponents to get one dimensional. Symbiotic relationship. Most teams want to do that, but for the way that the offensive and defensive schemes are and the composition of the roster, I think that is more important to the Texans than some teams, for example, the Patriots or Ravens.

The Texans try to get at least a couple of opponent soul crushing drives, and the way the Texans do run blocking can be physically draining to the offensive linemen, particularly at the end of a long drive. It can be harder on the defensive players.

With the early OTA eyeball test, it looks like Brooks may be up for this.

I was curious as to Gary Kubiak’s goals with the offensive line this year, given the rotation last year due to inexperience and injury, and this was his response:

“I’ll do what I think is best for our team and I don’t know what that is right now. (G) Brandon (Brooks) is working as the starting right guard. (T Derek) Newton is out. (T) Brennan Williams has not been able to practice. (T) Ryan Harris is on the right side. We have a lot of things going on right now, but if we have two solid starters that are consistent throughout the course of camp, then that’s the way we’ll go. But I think with what we went through last year, I think those young guys did a hell of a job.”

I know that fans were disappointed in how the end of last year went, particularly with the drop in offensive performance at the end of the year. But I think part of that was injuries to the offensive line and tight end position. All Olines want player consistency, and with a predominantly zone blocking team, working together is even more of a priority. Via Football Outsider’s snap count data base, check out the snap count rotation from last year:

I actually think the young guys did “a hell of a job.” Most teams that dip deeply in their offensive line depth chart at right tackle don’t win 12 regular season games.

Kicking.

Recently, I wrote about punting and kicking for the Texans. After Day 3’s OTAs, I asked Kubiak if they were going to bring a veteran kicker to compete against Randy Bullock like they did last year. His answer:

“Well, the young man we have here now can do both. (P Andrew) Shapiro can do both. But the way camp is set up now with the numbers, whoever that other guy is, and so our other guy is Shapiro, you want him to build it. Do both to take something off the punter and your kicker so you can use those roster spots somewhere else. Our plan is to go to camp that way and let them both compete against him because he’s a kid that’s done both pretty well in college.”

Speaking of Lechler, I know that fans shouldn’t be terribly excited about punts. Because that means bad stuff happened on offense. But given punting has sometimes been an adventure for the Texans in recent years, I think this is something that fans should actually be excited about.

Lechler kicks gorgeous, high, heavy, hard to return punts. Different to see in person than to just watch on TV. Kubiak mentioned the first day of OTAs that he kicks a difficult to field ball. And it can be difficult to return because he gets so much height on it as well. The defense has to like watching this display.

And I think…where the hades did this come from? I watched OTAs. I was at Kubiak’s Q&A with the media. Where did this report come from?

After chatting with them on Twitter, it looks like they over-emphasized reading a headline and read part of a quote stronger than it likely was intended.

Here’s more on how your news sausage is made….

At the risk of going too meta, I’d like to give you information so you can judge for yourself. Sites like Pro Football Talk and the NFL’s response to that, NFL-Around the League are mostly aggregator sites. They find news from around the league, add their commentary to it while sitting at a desk and gathering information from there. The good news about this is that if you are interested in the league as a whole, they do your news searching for you and have connections within the league to get additional information if they choose to do so.

The bad news is that sometimes aggregator sites, both sports and otherwise, are a bit like the kid’s game “Telephone.” They get their information from news sites, and distill it down to tweets and short articles. The news sites get their information from asking questions at the practice. The headline writers for news sites have the challenge of distilling information down to something that is both interesting and descriptive in very few words.

So sometimes aggregator sites in trying to cover a lot of news, slightly distort it because they aren’t actually watching OTAs and may not know 32 teams and their coaches in depth. And then fans reading it don’t necessarily realize the limitations/distortions of the information.

In addition, as I noted at the beginning of OTAs, you can’t over-read Kubiak comments about this player or that, because he usually only brings up players that the media questions him on. So just because he talks about a particular player or doesn’t talk about a particular player, doesn’t necessarily mean he favors one or the other. It can just mean he is answering a direction question. And usually, the exact question doesn’t show up in the transcripts.

So in the Houston area, because of the interest in Case Keenum, the media asks a lot of questions about him.

Here’s the actual Kubiak quote that the NFL Around The League tweet was referencing, and the original question that was asked specifically asked about Keenum so that is why he was mentioned first:

“Everybody is always competing. Case (Keenum) has obviously made up a bunch of ground from the standpoint of what he knows and what he can handle as a player. To me, he’s going to push T.J. (Yates) and then obviously with (Stephen) McGee, this is his first go-round with us. It’s only been a couple of days. The one thing about training camp nowadays in the NFL, you practice once a day, so there is a lot of ground that has to be made up in the offseason and that’s what’s going on right now. How far has Case come? How far has McGee come? I’ve had the other two for a while, so I have to see how far they come.”

So do you read that as saying Keenum has a substantial chance to unseat Yates? I don’t. It’s the normal Kubiak blah blah talk he says about players competing against each other and pushing each other.

As for my eyeball test, I think Keenum looks better than last year. I’ve heard that Kubiak very much likes Keenum as a player. All that being said, I haven’t seen anything that suggests that Keenum is playing better than Yates, or is fixing to unseat him, or that this is newsworthy at all other than Keenum looks better this year than last year, which is a basic thing you would hope to see.

All the quarterbacks have good plays, and not so good plays during OTAs, all of them being particularly challenged with the first two days of strong winds. Schaub and Yates are more known quantities. McGee and Keenum less.

In the words of the great philosopher and civic hero, Officer Barbrady, “Nothing to see here, move along.”

Answering Your Questions.

I wish everybody who wanted to could be and see OTAs. Though not quite the same, the quantity of information is better than it has ever been with the amount of information the official Texans site offers fans, including daily quotes.

But as one set of your eyes and ears, here’s my answer to various questions I’ve received this week with some expanded answers:

Cushing.

Question: “Have you had a chance to get a good look at Cushing? I know the coaches will tell you “Cushing will be back to his old self by the time the season comes around blah blah”, but we all know that’s not always the case after a significant knee injury. How does he look?”

Answer: “Cushing is working with trainers on a side field while OTAs are happening. If you didn’t know he had something done, you wouldn’t know. Isn’t wearing a big brace. Doesn’t have leg atrophy you can easily see like you sometimes can see after leg injuries. Not too heavy either, like sometimes happens when guys recover from knees. He just looks like Cushing.”

Position Battles.

Question: “What do you feel are the 2 or 3 big position battles heading into camp and preseason? Do any of the UDFA look like they have a shot at making the team? (specifically guys like Ray Graham, Cierre Wood, Johnny Adams)”

Answer: “A configuration that the Texans feel comfortable with on the offensive line going into the season, particularly on the right side. Last year’s big surprise in this regard was Ben Jones playing guard after not playing that spot since high school.

Third running back, and likely also one stashed on practice squad. This will likely have a lot to do with health, special teams flexibility, projection to be a possible #1 or #2 running back for future or if necessary.

Wide receivers after 1 and 2. I think that is wide open, dependent on health, special teams performance, ability to be p-squaded.

Yes, I think UDFAs have a shot at making this team. RBs in particular. Maybe safety. A lot of it depends on health/perforance at different spots coming out of camp so too early to say.”

Ben Tate.

Question: “I would be interested in how Ben Tate looks during OTA’s”

Answer: “Good. He looked good last year until he got hurt. So fingers crossed for them all.”

Nose Tackles.

Question: “We talk a lot about the LB’s, but NT seems to be an interesting battle right now. Mitchell seems to be the starter, but Crick beefed up to 295 and could play that spot, and Terrell McClain came over from the Panthers and seems to be fighting for a spot as well.

How do the NT’s look overall? I read your take on Mitchell, and I know the coaches are high on him, but do these others look like threats?”

Answer: “Unlike secondary and wide receiver play where you can evaluate a lot of things when they are just in shorts because so much of what they do isn’t supposed to involve substantial contact, it is very difficult to do any sort of meaningful assessment of defensive line play. (Except for J.J. Watt, pass swatting machine who did that from the first day he put on a Texans uniform in practice his rookie year). As I mentioned in one of my draft posts, if you look at the top DTs, a lot of them are in the 300 lb range–not as many planetoid ones–hard for those guys to move at that size and stay healthy, but the ones who have been able to do that have been invaluable. I think this may just end up being another year where you worry against teams that have a more balanced offense that your middle will be exposed again.”

Undrafted Free Agents to Watch.

“All the running backs have a shot due to numbers. Orthian Johnson at safety is intriguing…athletic, big body style 6’3″ Seattle big secondary player. Very active, verbal. 6’0″ A.J. Bouye has made some flashy plays, and the Texans didn’t draft corner this year. Justin Tuggle will get a look at LB. Earl Okine interesting prospect at DE, given his size/athleticism. Like Andy Cruse as someone to watch at WR…look at his bio and it has a lot in it that the Texans value in WR:smart/team/catch everything guy. Usually the Texans have a bunch of tall WRs in their receiver group but this year there’s not as many. If you were looking for a big one to stash as psquad eligible guy, he’s a prospect. For all these guys, it is a long shot. Though the Texans do take chances from their UDFAs, the roster is becoming increasingly difficult to make.”

Have any other questions? Leave them in the comments. This post is already too long.

OTA Fan Challenge.

The OTA Fan Challenge can be found at the Day 1 OTA post. While the Texans are doing things that are improving the team, why can’t we as fans get more awesome too?

But Registered Dieticians are not just for athletes. If you are having health or weight issues, consider consulting with a Registered Dietician to get sensible, safe, effective advice. I thought I knew a lot about nutrition until I met with someone who was a professional in that area. My cholesterol now is lower than it was when I first got out of school.

Keep up the encouraging words for each other about your off-season health and fitness goals in the comments. Inspiring so far.

Off-season Posts of Interest.

This is the time of year where I get new readers finding the blog. They are paying attention to football at the time there is actual football newsworthy events happening.

Welcome. Hi, I’m Steph. Hope you enjoy this space. I talk mostly football in the blog posts. Hopefully in a reasoned, semi-entertaining and informative way. Don’t claim to have all the answers, but always searching for them which is how I approach life in general.

And then we all talk most football in the comments. The commenting community here tends to be pretty cool. Often the conversation in the comments is so good, it is like a second blog post. Hope you join in. I ask people to talk football, to be critical of arguments but not of each other because no need to be rude.

Here are some off-season posts of particular interest that you might want to read if you want to catchup on the offseason: